Aaron Sorkin is heading back into Facebook territory with The Social Reckoning, a companion film to The Social Network that shifts the focus from the company’s creation to the fallout that followed. A new trailer has arrived for the film, with Mikey Madison (Anora) and Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) playing the whistleblower and reporter who took on the social media giant, and Jeremy Strong (Succession) stepping into the role of Mark Zuckerberg. Watch the trailer above and get all the details below.
Facebook’s Secrets Are Going Public
Set years after the events of The Social Network, The Social Reckoning is inspired by the events behind “The Facebook Files”, the Wall Street Journal‘s 2021 investigation drawing on thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents. Oscar winner Madison plays Facebook engineer Frances Haugen, who disclosed the documents, while White plays investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz.
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The new trailer puts their partnership firmly at the centre of the story. “I’m an investigative reporter, and that guy and this company are playing an unprecedented role in our lives,” Horwitz says early in the footage, referring to Zuckerberg and Facebook. Haugen knows where the company’s secrets are buried, but getting them out means putting herself in the sights of one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
“Wait, Mark, we’re trying to address hate speech, and you’re going to amplify and turbocharge it,” says the character played by Wunmi Mosaku. Zuckerberg replies, “The debate is over.”
The leaked material helped expose what Facebook knew internally about issues including the effects of its platforms on young people, the spread of divisive content and the consequences of decisions made around engagement. Sorkin had been hearing calls for another Facebook movie for years, but major controversies alone weren’t enough to give him the story he needed.
“Brexit, Cambridge Analytica — every time a Facebook event would crop up, I’d get phone calls from people saying, ‘You gotta write about this,'” Sorkin told Empire. “I just couldn’t see where the movie was. Before a film can be thought-provoking, relevant or important, it has to work as something that you’ll watch while eating popcorn.”
Haugen and Horwitz eventually provided that way in, giving Sorkin a whistleblower story with clear stakes rather than a collection of Facebook controversies to dramatise.
Sorkin on What Facebook Became
Speaking with Esquire earlier this month, Sorkin reflected on just how drastically Facebook and social media had changed since the period covered by The Social Network.
“When The Social Network ends, we put up on the screen that it has 500 million users, which was meant to elicit a gasp from the audience,” Sorkin said.
That once-staggering figure has since been dwarfed as Facebook grew to billions of users and became, for many, a major source of news and information. Sorkin’s concern with The Social Reckoning isn’t simply the scale of that growth, but what happened as the platform gained greater influence over the material people see and share.
He was also careful not to portray Zuckerberg as someone who originally created Facebook with destructive intentions.
“I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg ever intended for it to have a corrosive effect,” Sorkin told Esquire. “I think his intentions were good.”
Sorkin went on to describe Zuckerberg as someone who had struggled with existing social structures and effectively created one of his own, while acknowledging his intelligence and arguing that what began as an appealing idea ultimately grew far beyond its original purpose.
The Algorithm Is Part of the Reckoning
One development that plays directly into The Social Reckoning is Facebook’s 2018 algorithm change, which Sorkin discussed at length when asked about his previous statement blaming the platform for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“A comment was worth five times as much as a like; an emoji was worth fifteen times as much as a like. A reshare would be worth thirty times a like. Why is that significant? Because they knew that the things that get reshared the most are rage bait,” Sorkin told Esquire.
Sorkin said Facebook was facing falling engagement and increased competition when it retuned the algorithm, and argues that the changes gave inflammatory material a considerable advantage because anger could drive comments, reactions and, particularly, reshares. He believes a line can be drawn from that shift towards increasingly provocative content to the events of January 6, although he stopped short of confirming whether the Capitol attack itself appears in the film.
It’s one of the more serious accusations The Social Reckoning is taking on, and Sorkin is clearly expecting scrutiny. He told Esquire that, as with The Social Network, the new screenplay underwent extensive vetting by studio lawyers. He also stressed that while dramatic storytelling can involve changing incidental details, he draws a distinction when it comes to material that could distort an important truth or defame someone.
Sorkin has described the film as a David-and-Goliath story, with Haugen in the David position as an employee deciding to challenge a company with vastly greater power and resources. The new trailer leans heavily into that imbalance, with Haugen and Horwitz attempting to get the information out while the pressure surrounding them steadily builds.
Jeremy Strong Takes Over as Mark Zuckerberg
Jeremy Strong is playing Zuckerberg this time around, replacing Jesse Eisenberg, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in The Social Network. Sorkin spent three days trying to convince Eisenberg to return, according to Vanity Fair, but the actor ultimately declined, leaving Strong to tackle Zuckerberg at a very different stage of his life.
Sorkin has said Strong didn’t approach the role as an attempt to reproduce Eisenberg’s performance. “He didn’t feel like he was stepping into Jesse’s shoes,” Sorkin explained, as quoted by The Playlist. “He felt, as I did, that it’s not the same character. I think that a few minutes into Jeremy’s performance, people are going to forget about anything else.”
The Zuckerberg seen here is certainly in a very different position. He’s no longer the university student building Facebook and fighting over ownership of a rapidly growing website. He’s a billionaire at the centre of a global company facing journalists, whistleblowers, politicians and uncomfortable questions about decisions made behind closed doors.
The surrounding cast includes Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen, Bill Burr, Gbenga Akinnagbe and Anna Lambe. Burr gets some particularly memorable trailer moments as Zuckerberg is prepared for the increasingly difficult questions coming his way.
Sorkin Is Directing This Time
There is also a major change behind the camera. David Fincher directed The Social Network from Sorkin’s Oscar-winning screenplay, while The Social Reckoning has Sorkin serving as both writer and director. It’s his fourth feature as director following Molly’s Game, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Being the Ricardos.
One important member of the original creative team is back: cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, who shot The Social Network and earned an Academy Award nomination for his work, has returned behind the camera.
Sorkin produces alongside Todd Black, Peter Rice and Stuart Besser, while Lauren Lohman, Roger McNamee, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Broderick Johnson and Andrew A. Kosove serve as executive producers.
Release Date
The Social Reckoning opens in Australian cinemas on October 8 and U.S. cinemas on October 9.
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